6 reasons I’m so over Facebook for business!

A while ago I posted a popular blog 11 reasons why Twitter is better than Facebook. It’s had well over 20,000 views and every day more people find it thanks to its top spot on Google. Has my opinion of Facebook versus Twitter changed? Hell no. In my opinion Facebook is worse now than ever!

6 reasons I’m so over Facebook for business!

Why am I so over Facebook?

My Facebook Page is closing because of a brand change. (I’m not leaving for good – I’m just moving!) I am now asking people to like our Spaghetti Page where I will reside in the future. When I changed my Twitter name it was a simple name change and I was done. All my followers still follow me, and there was a redirect in place if anyone tweeted my old name. Because Twitter is a simple beast there’s a lot less to consider than if I’d changed my Facebook Page name.

I could have changed my Facebook name (you can do this only a few times in its lifetime though) but it made sense to just amalgamate all our work into one page. So I needed to tell all my fans about this. Unfortunately I couldn’t message all my fans without paying, so not all my fans will know when I finally close it. I’ve posted several times about the move and thrown a few quid at a boosted post with the news and the reasons for it in the hope all my fans see it.

So why am I over Facebook for business?

1. It costs money!

When you want reach it always costs money.

You used to be able to invite all your fans to an event. What happened to that? Oh yes… greed! Now you have to pay to promote your event so even this option is out of the window for telling all my fans that I’m moving – fail!

2. Scheduled posts 

On Twitter I use Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule posts for us and our clients. It’s a simple way to manage output and it allows me to just ‘be social’ when I’m live on the network, without worrying about forgetting to share the key messages.

Facebook has a schedule option, and until recently it’s been just as simple – and they even introduced a mobile option (much later, but hey!). But more and more recently it’s failed! ‘Something went wrong’ is now the most annoying thing I see on Facebook and I’m now left to schedule it all through Hootsuite now, as Tweetdeck stopped allowing Facebook when Twitter bought it.

3. Mobile versions don’t work!

I’m a busy guy, and I’m always in different places at different times. Twitter is perfect for this as it’s an on-the-move kinda platform and this is why it’s always appealed to me. The mobile version is brilliant and you also have the choice to move to other apps too. I use Tweetbot for iPhone as it far outweighs the standard Twitter app despite recent updates.

Facebook? Well there’s just the one app to choose from and when it sucks…. It sucks! You can’t use all the features of the desktop version. That’s fine, but you can’t use some of the features that you need to use to actually interact!

• You can’t reply: You can’t reply to a comment as you can on the desktop version. This means if you get to a comment too late, simply adding a comment to the thread won’t get your message to the original commenter. Replying is pretty much the only way social media works so this is a serious omission.
• You can’t tag people. You can’t add people to your message; just Pages. And that sometimes even means when they’ve commented in the same conversation. I have on occasion not been able to tag other Pages in comments too. Again – not very social.
• Notifications fail: The app is not very reliable with notifications and inbox messages as the worst culprit. People expect a response and if I’m away from a laptop for a length of time my iPhone is my only connection. Twitter DMs and mentions flash up instantly. On Facebook they often bump a few in together or sometimes never tell you at all.
• You can’t go home: The biggest reason the app fails is that you can’t be your Page and interact with others in your home time line. All you can do is post and comment on your post. That’s one of the biggest reasons businesses don’t succeed on Facebook – you need to get out and interact!

4. Facebook is tricky if you’re not B2C

If you have a business that people go to like a café or a shop, or you sell visually appealing products, then Facebook is brilliant. If you don’t, then getting your message out to people is a lot harder. When people come to you they can check-in, or you can tell them with signage that you’re on Facebook. You can offer people deals if they tag themselves in photos that you take when they’re there (which gains you reach and more audience) and it’s a whole lot more fun for both sides.

As a business who works with other businesses it’s harder. You very rarely get other businesses commenting on your posts as they just post and don’t interact. Your end user, the business, is often too busy to be social anyway. I find many of my clients on Twitter and LinkedIn where it seems they like to hang out. Like me, they find it’s easier to be able to talk to everyone!

5. Facebook for business is so closed!

Here’s an idea I’m going to throw out there… SOCIAL media (the clue’s in the title).

What’s the point of social media if you can’t be ‘social’?

As a business on Facebook you can only tag other businesses. You can only mention other businesses. You can only find other businesses. If you need to get out a large audience then that may be very limiting.

On Twitter you can find anyone in the world that is on the platform and it doesn’t matter if you’re a business or a person or a cat – you can talk to them!

I’ve met and done business with so many different types of people and business because of Twitter. Facebook has not been anywhere near as beneficial because of this limiting facility.

Maybe I spend more time on Twitter? But that’s understandable; it works for me and that’s a better use of my time. If Facebook allowed me to interact with everyone I’d be back in a second!

And the biggest reason I’m over Facebook…?

6. Algorithms and reach

Facebook have been tinkering a lot lately and their new algorithm (the clever code that serves up all the content) and it’s got greedy.

If you don’t pay, not all your followers will see your content. Sometimes a page with 100s of likes will have the message ‘6 people saw this’ added to a post and the owner of the Page is left with no choice but to advertise to reach more.

I understand that Facebook is a business and that there’s a lot of content to choose from, but seriously  – you’ve ruined all the fun and small businesses are slowly being turned off Facebook. Give us our reach back!

Twitter is still where it’s at for me. It works seamlessly on the go, it lets me get to a large audience and I can be a social butterfly without worrying about algorithms and reach!

Facebook still has a place in the social media marketing world, and is still the number one social network. But maybe it’s not a powerful as it once was?

Now it’s your turn…

What do you think? Is Facebook becoming more difficult or is it a business-specific issue? Please comment below – we love hearing your thoughts.

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